The first fully developed modern millennial visions claiming inspiration in the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren’s teachings emerged around the turn of the [20th] century and persisted until the end of World War II. With various permutations, these visions identified faith in the Lotus Sutra with Japanese nationalistic aspirations and looked forward to a world harmoniously unified under Japanese rule. This imperialist Lotus millennialism had its roots in the historical pressures of the Meiji period (1868-1912). First was the acute need for Japan to gain economic and political parity with Western powers if it was not to be exploited by them. Educators, opinionmakers, and spokesmen of the new Meiji government sought to rally citizens to the cause of transforming Japan into a modern industrial country by promoting a strong sense of national identity. Growing nationalistic sentiment in turn placed strain on the Buddhist community. For some time, Shinto and Confucian ideologues had criticized Buddhism as institutionally corrupt, a superstitious relic of the past, a drain on public resources, and a noxious foreign import that had oppressed the indigenous Japanese spirit. The Meiji Restoration also brought an end to the state patronage that Buddhism had enjoyed under the previous Tokugawa regime (1600-1868); the authority of the Buddhist establishment was further undermined by a brief but violent anti-Buddhist movement (1868-71) and by the institution of state Shinto as a national creed. Buddhism faced the need both to reform internally and prove its relevance to an emerging modern nation (Ketelaar 1990). Throughout the modern imperial period, virtually all Buddhist institutions, of all denominations, supported nationalistic and militaristic aims, sending chaplains abroad to minister to Japanese troops, missionizing in subjugated territories, and promoting patriotism and loyalty to government among their followers. Within Nichiren Buddhist circles, however, Nichiren’s mandate to spread the Lotus Sutra and thus realize the Buddha land in this present world was assimilated to imperialist aspirations in a way that inflated the latter to millennialist proportions.